1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is in the technical field of new car dealer vehicle inventory and customer relationship management systems and methods therefor. More particularly, the present invention is an inventory asset management system for vehicles on car dealer vehicle lots. The system is capable of providing central monitoring, vehicle access control, reporting on vehicle location on the lot, vehicle condition status, and other parameters of each asset on a car dealer's lot. The system is further capable of wireless communication between the vehicles and the central system module. When in dealer mode, communications may be provided at the vehicle to sales staff prior to sale. After the sale, when in owner mode, specific communications can be delivered to vehicle owner based on vehicle conditions and user preferences. Communications can be provided to individuals or group vehicle purchasers after the sale.
2. Discussion of the Art
Car dealers have a constant stream of new and used vehicles that enter and leave the Dealer's vehicle lot as vehicles are purchased from the factory and then resold to purchasers that trade in their old vehicle. There are often many different individuals that may need or have access to the vehicles or the who have access to the vehicle's keys, including people such as sales and lot staff, and aftermarket parts installers. It is generally difficult and sometimes impossible to monitor or control those that have access to the vehicle. This creates significant security concerns for the dealership.
Additionally, it is desirable for new car dealers to maintain a continuing relationship with the vehicle purchaser. Dealers may wish to make customers aware of vehicle maintenance schedules and maintenance services the dealer offers. The dealer may also want to provide customers, in an efficient and convenient manner, with information regarding factory recalls and recall action procedures. Generally, dealers will provide purchasers with postal or email notifications of information. These methods are mass mailed to a large customer list and do not provide for individualized messages that are customized for specific recipients. Further, these messages do not allow for the use of specific information gathered from the specific vehicle in real time to customize messages.
As vehicle technology has evolved to use digital vehicle data bus systems to monitor and control vehicle systems and devices, aftermarket manufacturers have developed systems to read digital signals from and send data messages to various vehicle devices connected to the data bus. Aftermarket systems have included GPS and cellular phone modules that allow for location and tracking capability and for communication with the vehicle through cellular phone networks. Adding a GPS and or cellular phone module creates significant cost increases in remote monitoring and control systems for vehicles. Not only is there increased hardware cost during manufacturing, but also cell phone transceivers require a subscription to provide access to a network for communication services.
The connection to the vehicle's data bus has generally been made through connection through the OBDII port or by hard wiring a data line to the data bus network. With the ability to remotely communicate messages to devices connected to a vehicle's data bus system there is an opportunity to remotely select features of those devices or set device operating parameters. New car dealers can exploit this capability and offer, at the point of sale, functional upgrades to purchasers. For example, a buyer may wish to have remote start capability for the vehicle. By turning this option on in the vehicle through the data bus the dealer can upgrade the sale. A limitation to current systems is that the vehicle must be programmed at the factory or connected to a programmer that is factory controlled.
Vehicle owners currently use remote fobs to control and program a number of devices on a vehicle data bus system. Additionally, most vehicles still require a physical key to access the car and start the vehicle. Vehicle owners prefer to have keys and other access and control devices integrated into a single device. Some vehicles, such as push to start ignition vehicles, allow for proximity detection of the key and with proper authorization, start of the vehicle engine with a simple push of a button on the dashboard. These systems still require the driver to have a separate key or transponder.
As vehicle data is gathered by way of the vehicles data bus system, access by the vehicle owner or driver to this information can be very useful. It is known to capture vehicle data and store the data to an on-board memory and then transfer the data to a reader or similar computer attached to the data bus. Vehicle malfunction, diagnostics and crash data are examples. There are limitations with the current data transfer methods in that these methods may require connection of a special tool to read the data. Further the data is not real time, it must be extracted from memory.